Betrayal in Red
by Funeral of Smile
Summary: AU. He remembers the sound of her voice although it's been years since he haven't seen her. He wonders, ponders, each conclusion grittier than the last. He loves hate. And he hates love. That's why, he loves her. He loves her and will love her in the most unconventional way: In Red.
1. Prologue

_AN: The genre will be a mix between crime, action, dark romance ( **warning** : Yandere!Takumi) and slight fantasy. _

**Disclaimer: _Characters belong to Hiro Fujiwara_**

* * *

 **Betrayal in Red**

 _\- Funeral of Smile -_

 _ **Prologue**_

* * *

 **Summer, 1995, Palmyra Atoll.**

 _-;-_

Red.

Red.

RED.

Everything is red; the sun, the sky, the horizon. The water that surrounds him. Even all the sand is tinged in the crimson reflection of the flaming air. Lungs full of searing heat, he takes a few deep breaths, but they feel shallow and useless. He's losing his mind to the deprivation of oxygen, to the stench of metal and death filling his remaining senses.

His hands are red, trembling. Coated with blood. It drips to his wrists, down the length of his frail and thin forearms. The child is barely young enough to comprehend what he had done.

He took one's breath away.

But that, in the literal way.

The gesture was simple. Simply a tug, a pull on the trigger.

 _A deafening sound._  
 _A heartless cry._  
 _One's down._

It was so easy.

He looks down, his hands forever coated in red. Before he knows it, his world tilts upside down, and he slumps into the coarse sand, his clothes soaked and heavy.

He swears his eyes are open, and a hoarse cry struggles to escape his dry and seared throat. He knows that if he closes his eyes, it will all end. He knows it and he fights against the pull of his heavy lids.

Everything was red.

Now...

 _Everything is black._

 _-;-_

The tropical breeze hardly reaches the wooden shelter hidden deep into the rainforest. Yet, it curls around the dirty-blonde locks plastered over his forehead, drying the damp sweat in its wake.

The boy breathes in a serene lull, his face, covered in an healthy later of perspiration, is collected in its unconsciousness. As troubled as he had been, his hands are no longer red, although blood clogs in the creases of his rusty nails. Would he wake up, he'd judge them as clean; clean as a murderer's hands could be.

The small girl is quiet in nature, observing and storing data away in her head. A moment later, and she's gone, her movement similar to one's of a feline; precise and agile. The leaves and stray branches do not make a single sound under her light steps, and they allow her silent glide into the forest.

He wakes up to the regular singing of wild cicadas, the blazing heat making his eyes open with difficulty. Sweat uncomfortably runs down his neck and dampens his hair but he hardly cares. All he sees is brown; slabs of wood from the shelter's beam.

The warm shade reminds him of red, and he closes his eyes, a sudden and painful tinge making him dizzy. His limbs won't move no matter how he tries to command them, and the effort makes him breathless.

Where is he?

The question is legitimate in the circumstances.

His breathing is erratic as he tries to utter a sound; any sound would do. But nothing gets past his throat, and the cicadas sing twice as loud, as if they were intend on drowning his pleas. The boy is smarter than average, very much so. He surmises that getting worked up in his state is futile; counter-productive, even.

He calms down, his eyes opening but resting passively on the roof of the shelter. He doesn't know where he is, and it could be part Heaven, the other part searing hot like he'd expect of Hell.

At least, he's conscious.

Unless his unconsciousness is playing a trick on him.

He doesn't know anymore, so he just stays like that, grateful to be able to think, but his soul heavy from his physical restrictions. His breaths calm down, and his erratic pulse comes to an halt, slowing to a resigned beat.

Until a faint rustle alerts him and throws his heart back in gallops.

His eyes instantly closes, feigning sleep as he hears light steps enter the cabin. But she notices the changes in his breathing; the hike in the rising of his lungs less innate than it had been during her long hours of observation.

It had been days after all.

Her cold fingertips touch the line of his throat and he shivers at the contact, his eyelids fluttering and his breath hitching. He's a novice at hiding the evident manifestation of his reflexes, and she sees through it all.

She hums softly, beckoning him to open his eyes.

He squeezes them shut instead, closing himself off.

A cool finger gently taps his lips.

Eventually, all he sees are wild ambers focusing on him.

And she'd never seen such a vibrant green in the irises of any living being before that. She steps back in fear, confusion hitting her like a storm, bewildered that the hue of her forest could find itself reflected so starkly in someone's eyes.

His features crease in confusion, taken aback by her reaction. He assesses her down, from her dirty bare feet to the sullied white drapery dress she wears, the hem torn and ripped away. Her hair is down in choppy strands of dark chocolate, her features delicate yet edging on ferocity and wildness.

When he tries to speak again, only a raspy sound scratches his windpipe and he winces in silent contemplation, one hand twitching in an attempt to reach for his neck.

Understanding dawns on her shock-recovering ambers, and she reaches for a vial of stream water and pulls back to him. When she places it upon his lips, he tries to shake his head, untruthful of the content of the container.

She frowns and decides to proceed as she did the past few weeks. Gulping down a mouthful of water, her lips descend on his and she efficiently forces her way past his lips, feeding him the much-needed water.

He coughs, raw and rough, sputtering water everywhere as his eyes open wide with ablast surprise.

Little did she know that he had interpreted it as something other than instinctive need; a wild and natural logic. His version of the act is something intrusively intimate, especially for the young boy he is.

Once again, his lips drop open to utter some desperate words, but nothing comes out. So she takes another gulp, and leans towards him. This time, he resists the shock of such a contact and let the cool water run down his starched throat.

"Thank... Thank you," he says difficultly, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. The words hang in the air, but she doesn't move, perplexed by the foreign sound. The back of her hand skims along his throat, and her eyes urge him to speak again.

When he does, she feels the vibrations underneath her splayed fingertips. And she hums along after a bit, trying to reciprocate his words in her own way.

It was after this peculiar session that he finally understood. The girl did not speak his language.

 _-;-_

In his lengthy recovery, he found out that she apparently lived on her own in this island, feeding off stray beasts she always managed to catch, God knew how, at dawn. She'd disappear at night, and take short naps in high branches in the hot days, curling in the fork of a heavy trunk, and yet always keeping an eye on the boy's wellbeing.

Her unfettered ways had brought something he had never yet tasted; it was a mixture of respect and reverence, but also a strain of longing. Usui Takumi hardly longed to be anyone, but here he was, wishing to be as free as she proved herself to be.

He had somewhat been labeled as a genius child, after all. Ever since the age of four, his dexterous fingers had effortlessly glided over the computer's keyboard, his form faster than most adults. He could encrypt data ever since he hit his seventh years and as he grew, he showed to be a promising weapon for the future cyber-generation.

Alas, his skills became his downfall, because his family couldn't protect him, although they had tried. When his biological mother had died, that was when his life started to turn for the worse.

When his father had chosen a woman to replace his mother.

Whom started to take profit out of him.

Using him.

Red.

Red.

 _Red._

Maybe his hands will clean up with time.

As he sits on that large canopy tree trunk, a cool hand comes to curl around the nape of his neck, and he leans into the touch. Why was that girl's touch always refreshing cold was a wonder he didn't question.

"Hello," he smiles, albeit sweetly when ambers gaze down at him. She had jumped upon the tree's trunk, eyeing him down with perfect balance despite of standing on her tiptoes. Her hands cross behind her back as she leans closer to his ear.

"Hello," she echoes, her voice tentative and uneven in tones.

Beckoning her closer with a small gesture of his hand, she bends lower as he stretches to reach for her, one hand curling around her neck. The flask of water he holds at his side is already open and he swigs a long gulp before feeding it to her, their soft lips touching without abashment.

Ignorant of whether it was out of habit or simply because he wanted to do so, all in all, he finds the gesture somehow so endearing and affectionate he couldn't give it up.

When came the time where he could freely walk and run without any strain, the boy was already months older.

The boy, so good at digital technologies, hardly knew the wonders nature had to offer, after all.

"It's breathtaking," he voices towards the lush waterfall, on a sunny day. The water sparkles under the sunrays filtering through hefty trees, and he steps into its refreshing coldness with a sigh full of relief.

"Beautiful?" She asks with a lilt of her head, the word curling with her soft spoken voice. Nodding with a smile, he confirms her word.

"Very," he says, and widely opens his arms to show the immensity of the word.

That very night, he craved for discovering the forest by himself. Sneaking out of the shelter, his steps lightly thud on the ground, twigs creaking and breaking under his now hardened foot.

Heading in a random direction, he threads the ground, blindly pushing away thick foliage as he can manage in the darkness. Something beckons him towards the blue lagoon he had learnt the pathway to. Quickly enough, he navigates through the heavy forest and hits the lagoon, its surface reflecting the trillion of stars he could hardly see, back in the city.

Fireflies take flight the second he touches the glassy surface with the tip of his fingers, ripples settling in and troubling the still water. Something stirs in his heart, and he wishes he could've brought her here to watch the ephemeral midnight wonder with him.

A lighting bug drops onto his outstretched hand, shinning with might, fading in and out in rhythm with its peers.

The blonde boy smiles at the insects and at their collaborative shine. But all of sudden, all the light dies down, the bug that was on his hand taking flight with haste.

A cold wind falls on the forest, leafs and branches rustling with ill omen.

Heart in his throat at first, he freezes, before taking off in the same fear the firefly had been animated with. Stray twigs cut at his hasty departure, his cheeks bruising and his hands and knees scrapping at some accidental falls. Wind sifts at his ears as he hurtles down his way, his heart beating painfully.

A shadow follows him above his head, pacing with his frenzied escape towards the wooden shelter in sleek jumps, from tree to tree. Deep down, he knew that there was that one implicit rule; that he shouldn't be out at night in the forest. Not without her.

Skin burning at the bleeding injuries and the fear coursing his veins fueling his run, he continues on, his breathing turning erratic along with his heart-rate.

Something shackles his ankle and he falls awkwardly, feeling a white hot pain down his calf. Things happen so suddenly, and a shrieked hiss falls, making the night still and the hair on his nape stand with dread.

Twice the length of a house cat, a feline tackles his burdened leg, clawing his skin in its wake. One short cry cuts through his throat and he scrambles back up, nails digging into fresh soil. His left leg feels unstable because of the burning pain, and he falls again, not even two feet further. Eyeing back, all he sees through the pale inkling the moon gives is a small feline clawing open a nasty snake, jaws and incisive working through scales and blood.

Without another look, Takumi crawls back up and heads to the shelter with all the strength he has left. When he hits the open door, he slumps down on the entryway, certainly weakened by his calf injury burning him from inside out.

 _-;-_

That night, he dreams of felines and snakes. Of small leopards and cobra. They turn all red, dripping with blood, and somehow, he's killing them with his bare hand. Twisting and cutting their windpipes with his own two hands.

He wakes suddenly, gasping, the sun shining back without a regard to his late-night doing. He's lying on the bed, a damp fabric on his forehead and his calf burning in a buzzing and spreading pain.

Thankfully, he manages to rise up and head out, supporting himself against the wooden beams of the shelter. Wincing whenever he uses his left leg to support his weight, he weakly stumbles his way out.

Five minutes is close to eternal agony, but that's how long it takes to her to find him awake. Happy to see her despite the state he is in, he begins to step towards her but something stops him.

She has a deep frown etched upon her face, her mouth twisted in blatant displeasure and quiet disfavor. His heart sinks down, joy shifting to dread. Her hair is a mess, and her eyes burn with a slow rage he'd never seen shining in her ambers before.

Seeing that he has stopped walking, she reaches to him instead, yanking at his forearm. Her hands tangle into his hair, pulling his head back. Easily positioning him, she tugs on his hair, making his naked neck stretch.

Pain seeps so easily, first aggressive and hot as she sinks her teeth in the sensitive skin of where his shoulder and throat meet. It lasts a beat longer, and as she clenches her jaw around his skin, he knows there'd be a deep mark lining his pale skin. He knows that, but he also knows that somehow, this is a punishment for disrespecting her rules. For sneaking off on her the night.

Breaking her trust.

He deserves it, and somehow, he hopes that it's all he'll have to pay, because he's so scared that she'd leave the burden he must be. All at once, she pushes away, leaving him disoriented and cold despite the permanent heat of the island.

Stepping back, she stops at a far distance from him, and after a while, leaves rustle behind her, revealing some adults wearing khaki uniforms pacing towards her. She shifts so she keeps both their arrival and the boy in her eyesight.

"Very good," a soldier, or guard, words out. He's escorting a man clad in a business suit despite the heat. Something bitter rises in Takumi's throat because a tall woman follows the man, helped in her step by another soldier.

"Finally, we've found him, dear."

A voice he'd recognize between thousand.

His step mother.

Red.

As they reach him, all he wants to do is run away, and he attempts to do so, but the wild girl jumps on him before he can. She keeps him locked in her grip as he struggles as he can, utterly regretting the gashing wound on his calf and the perpetual pain running in his body.

"Thank you, Ayuzawa," the immaculate blonde woman says to the wild girl in a gratifying tone. Young emerald eyes rake the ambers he thought he had learnt to know.

"You... You have a name?..." He whispers, wanting to puke the content of his empty stomach more than anything else.

She smiles bitterly, not looking at him but straight ahead. "Yes, I do. But you never asked me, did you?"

His throat constricts at what he hears. "You... You can speak my language?... You understood me the whole time but you...?"

"Yes."

His step mother's grip curls around his wrist before he can utter another stunned question at that girl he had pinned as cut off the civilization. Leading him away, he struggles to watch back, to watch the girl and the soldiers, patting her head as if congratulating her of some good deeds while he was sold away by the only friend he would have cared about, had she not betrayed him.

Red.

Red.

 _Rage._

Red didn't wash away that easily after all.

 _-;-_

* * *

 _ **A/n:** 23/06/2016_

 _Do you like it? :) This is the prologue. The main story will feature them after a few years from then. I hope you will like it, it's my first fic ^^'_

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 _-;-_


	2. Chapter One

_A/N: Thank you for the very warm welcome!_

 _A special thank to the previous chapter's reviewers: Boldnbright, nellwyn924, Ary, Rosyrose1345, Padfoot Starfyre, J nds and every single guests. You are admirable souls, and an infinite source of encouragement!_

 _I really like to read and write, it's just that I never thought of publishing anything on this website before, I'm sorry if that was misleading :)  
_

 _-;-_

* * *

 _ **Chapter One  
**_

* * *

 ** _Fall, 2010, London, United Kingdom._**

 _-;-_

One enclosed room and no windows, it is barren of all personal insets. Even the walls seem to be made out of metal-plated concrete, enhancing the bleak interior.

One computer screen gleams in the dark, the somber glow from the color inversed system the only remote source of light in the cold room.

Working for intelligence services comes with its occasional perks. The benefit is materialistic, and yet, it can reach a wide array of purpose, ranging from virtual currency to the rawest and substantial diamond found in South Africa.

Namely, a plastic card.

 _Also known as American Express' Centurion credit card._

The lean and blonde man chuckles haughtily, his persona jaded from the numerous years taking away his innocence and naivety. The society is easily led on, thinking that the richest individuals in the world would flaunt their asset through aloof exposure.

The Forbes' billionaire list is only a small sliver of all the currency flowing right under the State's lawful nose.

Those figuring are only the numerous fools who couldn't flee the tremendous taxes and hefty contribution they now have to carry upon their thin shoulders.

With one lazy hand skimming the keyboard of the computer, he proceeds to make a black window fills the screen up, displaying the numerous Stock Exchanges weaving the financial world together.

He could shut them down with a flick of his fingers.

But he doesn't.

After all, no one asked him to.

 _Yet._

Usui Takumi works for the Intelligence Service of Great Britain. Undeniably an advantage to the Agency, as he had been since his thirteen's years old, he had managed to climb up the social ladder instead of forever being used as a state-dog.

Nevertheless, he's still a Britain's puppet at the height of his twenty-fourth's living years.

At least, he's a royal puppet, he surmises, one hand raking his blonde locks away from his face. That was more title-worthy than being in the moldy palms of his despicable step-mother. That woman knew nothing about using his potential.

She'd been unproductive.

Plain stupid.

She could have won billion if she'd known how to use him properly.

In the meantime, the man had grown into sharp edges over a lean build. Compare it to the past years, where he had only been a sickly vulnerable child, and the difference would only appear as starker. He was simply that unrecognizable.

The eyes that used to be the same shade than a luscious forest is now a distilled tone of emerald; dark and intense. No longer sun kissed, his messy hair is of a dirty-gold quality, edging on the color of gritty sand that didn't have yet the time to smoothen into silky sprinkles.

And his heart...

Well, the humanity in it ceased to exist a long time ago.

Only an unhealthy rush of hate remains, seated in its core, and that, along with an obsession he has yet to satiate.

Hate is not only a vice, for it has faded the weak belief of candor and credulity he happened to bask in. Takumi was only thankful to the hatred he harbored, as it served as a irrevocable wake-up call.

After all, ruling the world is certainly easier when no emotions are in the mix.

But with all the resources at arm reach, he still pondered on one vital question. One question he'd wake up at night with, and fall asleep in daylight from the lack of answer.

Why was finding her so hard?

He had found the island data ages ago. Palmyra Atoll. An ex-USA Navy unit island in the nineties. Despite having hired multiple agents to check it up, combing the forest in utmost secrecy...

The endgame had been the same every year.

 _Nothing._

 _Nothing to report._

No ambers, no salvage girl.

"Ayuzawa," he murmurs, his voice soft and low. Even her name served him little. Names were meaningless in this era. The trace they left were like footprints on the seashore; they were altered way too quickly by the rushing waves for anyone to successfully pry.

If only he had known that, soon enough, they'd cross way again, he'd have been able to brace himself for the fleeting moment.

But until then, he would drown in his own bitter sweetness.

 _-;-_

Providing that aerial view was possible, looking down at the area of a city as affluent as London quarters would remind of confusing mazes and unpredictable runs of blurry lines across an eloquent canvas. Zoom into the area, and they'd sharpen into flecks of living individual. Moving. Always moving.

Nothing remains immobile in this world, and the faintest breath has the power to change one's life irrevocably.

And in the sunset of a city that never knew respite, their crossing shouldn't have been that noticeable.

And it's not.

It happens just like any typical encounter; fast and meaningless if left without unprecedented actions.

A brick stone backstreet spilling out to the main avenue.

The sun declining.  
Red hues.  
One brush of a shoulder, coarse and impersonal.

Nothing's muttered; no apologies ensue for they are a hassle.

The hem of his dark trench coat lingers at the soft impact.

She simply nods in acknowledgment.

He shrugs back, losing no time.

A flash of ambers glints.  
A black baseball cap is pulled back down.

Emeralds widen.

Steps echo, regular and unstopping.

She's moving away from him, but he's stuck to his feet, as if gravity's pulling his weight down to prevent any disaster from occurring.

When he manages to turn around...

She had already disappeared.

Crows caw above, and the sky is of a crimson red.  
Red like the blood coating his hands had been.

 _Red._

Thickly, the hard and deafening rhythm of his heart beating keeps pounding away, echoes dispersing in each layers of his limbs.

It had been years since he ever felt so alive.

 _-;-_

She's on the run. Eyes are always watching, but she knows how to sink past the guard of londonners.

Any shadow would be susceptible to protect her anyway. She's no eye-catcher, silent as any intelligence agent are supposed to be. But she has a secret that makes her world apart from her peers.

Something no one should know.

Swiftly pushing herself up some wooden crates in the narrow and dark alley, she continues up until she's crouching on the highest box, feet from the ground. Without a sound, her clothes slide from her skin, her pupils narrowing and her senses magnified the second she's all sleek and feline stretches.

Alike to a dwarf leopard, she is much smaller in size than any glorious and famed wildcat people usually appreciate. Salvage elegance compacted in less than a meter long, her tawny fur is lined with dark brown and irregular shaped spots and stripes. These are edged with black and dusky white, giving the feline a most distinctive appearance, along with the delicate rounded ears perking on her head.

One of the said ear flicks in rapt attention, having caught a sound in the irregular whistle of the dusky breeze.

 _Someone is coming,_ the wind whispers to her innate senses.

Snatching her discarded clothes in her clear-cut jaw, the feline braces itself for the long jump up the cresting balcony of an adjacent dwelling; a rundown lodging of several floors' height.

And in his pulsing heartbeat and harsh breathing, all he sees is a shadow moving, lean and precise.

If the sight seems as familiar as foreign could be to a traveler, he still can't put his finger onto what he's just witnessed.

His mind is working on it, though.

 _Fervidly so._

 _-;-_

* * *

 _ **A/N:** 25/06/2016  
I have an unhealthy obsession with ocelots.  
Do you like it so far? It's a very different setting from the prologue so I'm kind of scared of the feedback ^^'  
_

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 _-;-_


	3. Chapter Two

_A/N: A special thank to the previous chapter's reviewers:_ _crystalcoffeebubbles, truth, Boldnbright,_ _ _Padfoot Starfyre, Garet,__ _ _ _Rosyrose1345, Ishita.d, violet167, melia__ and every single guests. Your thoughtful words only stir grateful wishes from me and I hope they do reach you in their flight! _

_More than for myself, I do admit that I write for you, because I yearn to share my words with others rather than keep them to myself. But there is a part of me that is selfish enough to write what I'd want to read the most, so, I apologize if the world I try to depict is not to your taste: I'm not trying to follow a trend or whatsoever, but simply to relinquish the thirst that burns in me by writing and building this AU out of my chest :)_

 _-;-_

* * *

 _ **Chapter Two  
**_

* * *

 ** _Fall, 2010, London, United Kingdom._**

 _-;-_

Curiosity easily rouses in human's nature, an undeniable characteristic that hits few more than the others. It sparks the mind like a fervent fire could destroy a lonely tree.

As for the feeling brewing in Takumi's heart, it is closer to a sweeping wildfire burning acres of woodland.

Running algorithms, he's hacking into the area's CCTV recordings in less than a quarter when he storms back into the room that serves him as a prison fort. Thin glasses sit on the bridge of his nose as his fingers are flying over the keyboard, typing in a string of characters by heart or out of coherent deduction; no one would ever know.

 _Coordinates details._

 _N 51° 29.856174'_

 _W 0° 6.705093'_

 _Encryption key.  
256-bit WEP Keys._

 _6AD894828EEA96773791366974E36.  
B7669B874AB2BA74558BBCEEF3AB..._

 _Processing._

Turning on the two other computer screens resting on the desk, he makes an efficient use of them and soon enough, they're displaying the several footages of London's downtown quarters.

Fast forwarding into the approx moment, he catches the shadow of his own form, lean and fuzzy. His face is a blur of pixel he could remediate to, but that's not his concern, because when the girl crosses by him; she's barely on-screen, her frame cut in the very edge of the recording and her back facing the lens.

The recording is useless.

Turning onto the camera posted at the other end of the backstreet, he's sure that she's bound to appear in this one. After all, it's only a one way street. But after half an hour of rapt observation, she's still not to be found.

Even in the several other angles the measly State's camera provided: she had completely disappeared out of the thin air.

 _How was that possible?_

Head swimming in confusion, his hands drop to his side, dangling from his shoulder as he leans back into his comfy but worn chair. But if these years have taught him anything, it was patience, so he simply rubbed his eyes and put back on his thin-rimmed glasses to watch the remaining CCTV footages.

 _-;-_

Agents from the SIS, or more precisely the Secret Intelligence Service, cover a wide range of fascinating and unique roles overseas. Discretion is of capital importance, and wide cultural knowledge an absolute requirement.

Unlike intelligence officers who hold guns and run offensive operations, Misaki works as an agent-runner; the sharp end of intelligence-gathering. Crafting personas, eluding charms along with an insidious sense of persuasion, she secures intel by finding individuals with access to secret data of value, and trick them into disclosing them all in private circumstances.

There's no bomb, no blades and life-threatening situations...

 _If all goes according to the plan, of course._

The security team always lingers close to the agent-runner team, ready to act. To operate in the shadows, the attention cannot be drawn to their secret agents.

As she sweeps long and blonde curls over her shoulder, Misaki enters the ballroom in her shimmering obsidian gown, perched over the arm of some charcoal three-pieces-suit clad gentleman.

Stretching her neck to reach his ear, he leans down like any good lover would do to hear her words.

They are undercover, after all.

"Delicious reception banquet, isn't it?" She asks the words in a murmur, in reality pointing out their target ambling around the celebration's feast.

Mock blue eyes glint back at her, although she knows that in all truth, they're of a golden quality. "Yes, love. But I'm rather in awe at the riverfall."

Imperceptibly looking at the lean man, she notices in the corner of her eyes the champagne fountain at the opposite corner of the room. Their second target is posted there, talking with a handle of gentlemen.

"Oh, it is quite magnificent too, dear," she softly smiles up, and her partner reciprocates the smile in his husky and charming way. Olivia Grace loves her husband Zachary O'Connor. As for Misaki; she simply enjoys working with Tora.

Later in the night, they'd find themselves weaved into the party, a flute of champagne sparkling in their hand as they'd discuss in the inner circle of their respective targets. The influential senator wouldn't know that he was conversing in the vicinity of a secret agent, and neither would the foreign advocate notice the fraud.

 _-;-_

The next days befall in similar fashion, her life vibrant with events and various circumstances whereas his are duller than the grey and pouring sky of London city. They morph into weeks and change into months, the daylight gradually forfeiting time upon nightfall's arrivals.

He'd never know it, but more than often, the clues he brings from his exploitation of networking systems are, in one way or another, reaching her grasp and used for her commodities. Exchanging information back and forth, her name would change as often as time ticks, but her agent identification would always keep the same sequence.

If only he had known, he'd have realized that he had been communicating with her since a long time already.

Spent from the body-building routine he undergoes to keep shape, he brushes off the layer of sweat coating his face and decides to head outside.

Slipping on a thick and black pea coat, Takumi stalks out without much preamble. As always, he's followed by two security agents, but by now, he's grown so accustomed to it that he couldn't care less.

As he walks down the snowy road —the hours; still early, leaving him a flicker of freedom— the streets are almost empty. Cold bites the nape of his neck, and in a smooth flick of his wrist, he tucks up the collar of his coat. Another passerby shares his lane, and he can't help but gaze at her form.

She's all elegance and high heels. Her hair is auburn, perfect curls swirling down in cascades over her shoulders. A long trench coat fits her, snuggly-looking in the weather. It follows her slender waistline, fanning at the curve of her hips and leaves hint at the dress she wears underneath.

He can't help the admiration as she walks by, albeit nonchalantly, down towards him. Her face has something reminding him of delicate surrender and sheathed restrain.

Something screaming familiar and yet foreign in sight.

Close enough to see the pale viridian her irises are, she crosses by him with indifference and he does the same. But as his steps keep crunching the snow underneath his feet, hers come to an halt.

When he turns around out of wonders, he spots her staring back at him, her rosy lips slightly open.

Puzzled, he ventures, "Excuse me?"

She blinks at him, something in her eyes turning aloof and... usual. Nothing's amiss anymore, but Misaki, as dolled up as she is, is scared.

She's scared and unusually so.

"Yes?" She asks, as if he had been the one troubling her course rather than the other way around. Her acts had betrayed the usual decorum of manners the society approved of. She had to get the reins back.

"No..." He murmurs, perplexed. "It's nothing," he offers at last, before walking back towards his old route.

As she stands up there, willing her heart to settle down, the moment rewinds again and again in her head, saturating her senses.

The trace of him had assaulted her, reviving memories of a long and humid summer under thick and lush trees and leafage. The trigger was the overwhelming scent: warm sweat, salt and a fleeting touch of coarse pines.

As faint as it had been in this cold weather, she'd recognize this scent between thousand.

That sweat she had repeatedly wiped away with a damp towel.

"Clarisse."

Her duty-name pulls her back to reality, and when she turns around, Tora is gazing down at her, a hint of detached concern hitching his fine brows together. He can't show it in daylight, but she knows he cares, and perceptible as he is, she also knows that a long line of questions is threading in his astute head.

"Ed. What is it?" She says, her gaze lingering and not exactly focusing on his face.

His frown deepens. "We're due. Let's go."

She nods and follows him, although the thought of that boy back in the island clings to her every steps. And she doesn't notice it, her mind awfully wrecked by the reminiscing memories, but in the shadow of the adjacent backstreet, the said boy —now grown into a fine man— had been watching their interaction with stirred curiosity.

But also with a hunch that made him put his guard up.

 _-;-_

* * *

 _ **A/N:** 27/06/2016  
I'm sorry if it seems a bit slow, but I don't want to force their meeting...  
Even though we all know that novels work with outrageous happenstances and circumstances ;)  
Let's keep it pretend-real! Fighting! :D  
_

* * *

 _-;-_


End file.
